User manual BUSINESS OBJECTS DATA INTEGRATOR 11.7.0.0 FOR WINDOWS RELEASE SUMMARY

[. . . ] This document highlights the new features available with this release. Business Objects has also recently released two new products that complement Data Integrator and offer more Enterprise Information Management solutions: · · BusinessObjects Composer BusinessObjects Metadata Manager See the Business Objects Web site or contact a Business Objects sales representative for more information. Data Integrator information resources Consult the Data Integrator Getting Started Guide for: · · · An overview of Data Integrator products and architecture Data Integrator installation and configuration information A list of product documentation and a suggested reading path After you install Data Integrator (with associated documentation), you can view the technical documentation from several locations. To view documentation in PDF format: · If you accepted the default installation, select Start > Programs > BusinessObjects Data Integrator version > Data Integrator Documentation and select: · Data Integrator Release Notes--Opens the Release Notes PDF, which includes known and fixed bugs, migration considerations, and last-minute documentation corrections · Data Integrator Release Summary--Opens this document, which describes the latest Data Integrator features · · · Data Integrator Technical Manuals--Opens a "master" PDF document that has been compiled so you can search across the Data Integrator documentation suite Data Integrator Core Tutorial--Opens the Data Integrator Tutorial PDF, which you can use for basic stand-alone training purposes Release Notes Select one of the following from the Designer's Help menu: · Data Integrator Release Summary 5 Overview · · · · · Release Summary Technical Manuals Tutorial Other links from the Designer Help menu include: Data Integrator Community--Opens a browser window to the Diamond, the Business Objects developer community web site Knowledge Base--Opens a browser window to the Business Objects Online Customer Support web site You can also open the Data Integrator documentation from links on the new Start Page that opens automatically when you open the Designer. To open the Designer, choose Start > Programs > BusinessObjects Data Integrator version > Data Integrator Designer. [. . . ] For more information, see Chapter 7, "Distributing Data Flow Execution, " in the Data Integrator Performance Optimization Guide . Load balancing enhancements Data Integrator now provides the ability to distribute the workload across multiple servers in a grid. 8 Data Integrator Release Summary Extreme scalability You can distribute the execution of a job or a part of a job across multiple Job Servers within a Server Group to better balance resource-intensive operations. You can specify the following distribution levels when you execute a job: · · · Job level--A job can execute on an available Job Server. Data flow level--Each data flow within a job can execute on an available Job Server. Sub data flow level--A resource-intensive operation (such as a sort, table comparison, or table lookup) within a data flow can execute on an available Job Server. For more information, see "Using grid computing to distribute data flows execution" on page 112 of the Data Integrator Performance Optimization Guide . Parallel join enhancements Data Integrator provides an additional parallel hash join that you can use to improve joins of large volumes of data. In addition, you can distribute the parallel join execution over multiple sub data flows. For more information, see "Degree of parallelism and joins" on page 86 of the Data Integrator Performance Optimization Guide . Performance Optimization Guide enhancements This version of Data Integrator provides a reorganized and enhanced Performance Optimization Guide to help you measure and tune performance of your ETL jobs. The new organization provides examples of tools to measure performance and determine performance bottlenecks, and it suggests tuning methods that subsequent chapters describe in detail. The enhancements include scenarios and examples that demonstrate usage of the new Extreme Scalability features in Data Integrator. For more information, see "Command line login to the Designer" on page 25 of the Data Integrator Advanced Development and Migration Guide. 10 Data Integrator Release Summary Maximum productivity Excel workbook as a source You can now import an Excel workbook directly without using ODBC. You can import the schema from a named range defined in the workbook, a custom range in a worksheet (for example A1:C10), or all fields. For details, see "Excel workbook format" on page 108 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide. Function enhancements This release includes several new functions to the list of available built-in functions in Data Integrator. These functions make it easier for Data Integrator developers to create more complex calculations and also adds to Data Integrator analytical capabilities. New functions include mathematical functions (sqrt, log, power), aggregation functions (count_distinct), string functions (asc, chr) and many more. A new category of functions will make it possible to compare values between different rows in a table, making it easy to calculate trends (Previous_Row_Value) and detect changes in values. Further, several functions were improved based on customer feedback, for example the week_in_year function can now return week numbers following the ISO standard which is dominantly used in Europe. For more information, see "Descriptions of built-in functions" on page 401 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide History preserving transform enhancements The History Preserving transform now contains an extra option to set the Valid to column of your old record. Now you can set the Valid to result for the same day or the previous day. For more information, see "History_Preserving" on page 307 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide JMS and SF. com Interface Integration In previous versions of Data Integrator, the JMS and SF. com Interfaces were installed via a separate installation process from your Data Integrator installation. Hence, if you wished to use the JMS and SF. com Interfaces, these Interfaces were installed after you installed Data Integrator. However, Data Integrator Release Summary 11 Maximum productivity the installation of these interfaces is now an option you may choose during the installation of Data Integrator. [. . . ] To accommodate these types of changes, Data Integrator now provides new mechanisms for: · · Updating local repository login parameters--Using an optional, portable password file, you no longer need to manually regenerate job schedules associated with changed database or repository parameters Updating datastore connection parameters--You can now update datastore connection parameters from the Administrator (instead of installing Designer and doing it from the datastore editor) See the Data Integrator Management Console: Administrator Guide for details. Data Integrator Release Summary 13 Maximum productivity Performance monitor This version of Data Integrator provides a new Performance Monitor to help you investigate performance bottlenecks. You can view performance statistics in both graphical and tabular formats. When you execute jobs with the Collect statistics for monitoring option, you can view memory usage statistics. For more information, see "Reading the Performance Monitor for execution statistics" on page 29 of the Data Integrator Performance Optimization Guide . Self-tuning Data Integrator uses cache statistics to automatically determine the optimal cache type for subsequent job executions. [. . . ]